Named after her grandmother, Betty Crocker is director of child nutrition services at Redlands Unified School District. She was named one of five five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest. This summer the program served 55,000 meals.

“I’m the real Betty Crocker! It’s the name that makes the world smile and giggle. I’m all about making folks smile so I wear Betty with pride,” Betty Crocker exclaims. The Redlands Unified School District director of child nutrition services, was named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest. The Claremont resident is photographed at Redland’s Citrus Valley High on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

Betty Crocker, Redlands Unified School District director of child nutrition services, will cook you anything you want at her home, but not at school where no desserts are served. The Claremont resident, who loves fruits and vegetables, was named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest. Photographed at Redland’s Citrus Valley High on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

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Initially Betty Crocker didn’t embrace her infamous name, but when her grandmother, also named Betty Crocker, died she learned to embrace it. The Le Cordon Bleu-trained Crocker says culinary name or not, she would have wound up in food no matter what. Her earliest memory is in the kitchen and the first book she ever read was a cookbook. The Redlands Unified School District director of child nutrition services, was named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest. She’s photographed at Redland’s Citrus Valley High on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

Betty Crocker won’t let them eat cake. The Redlands Unified School District director of child nutrition services prefers fruits and vegetables. The Le Cordon Bleu-trained Crocker was named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest. She’s photographed at Redland’s Citrus Valley High on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

“Happy Friday,” Betty Crocker says high-fiving Citrus Valley High students in Redland, Calif. on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. The Redlands Unified School District director of child nutrition services was named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest.(Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

A spicy chicken salad is served at Citrus Valley High in Redlands, Calif. on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

“Happy Friday,” Betty Crocker says high-fiving Citrus Valley High students in Redland, Calif. on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. The Redlands Unified School District director of child nutrition services was named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest.(Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

Betty Crocker takes a big bite out of hunger one kid at a time. The Redlands Unified School District director of child nutrition services was named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest. She’s described as inspirational and amazing mentor by her team. Photographed at Citrus Valley High students in Redland, Calif. on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

If you’re expecting desserts at Citrus Valley High in Redland, Calif., think again. The Redlands Unified School District director of child nutrition services, Betty Crocker, was named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest and she advocates healthy foods on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

The Blackhawk Bistro at Citrus Valley High in Redland, Calif. offers fruit, veggies and more. The Redlands Unified School District director of child nutrition services, Betty Crocker, was named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest and she advocates healthy foods on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

Citrus Valley High’s Brooklyn Owens, right, laughs and lunches with friends at the Redlands, Calif. school. The Redlands Unified School District director of child nutrition services, Betty Crocker, was named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest and she advocates healthy foods on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

Dominik Vega, 16, left, and Ramae Mackamul, 16, pay more attention to each other than lunch at Citrus Valley High in Redland, Calif., on Friday, Aug. 23, 2018. (Photo by Cindy Yamanaka, Redlands Daily Facts/SCNG)

It is sweet serendipity: Betty Crocker is a hero for feeding thousands of children during summer break. To be clear, we’re not talking about the fictional Betty Crocker who grew into a cultural icon from a Gold Medal Flour promotion in 1921. That’s this Betty’s grandmother.

Named after her grandmother, Betty Crocker, left, is director of child nutrition services at Redlands Unified School District. She was named one of five five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest. Over the past two summers, the program has served 66,000 free meals to kids like these two little boys.

This Betty Crocker, 51, is a real person. She was just named one of five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest. She is the director of child nutrition services at Redlands Unified School District. And her mission is the same as that of the No Kid Hungry campaign that the nonprofit Share Our Strength launched in 2010: feed children.

Crocker, who lives in Claremont, prefers the more endearing term “kiddos” when she speaks about the 22,000 students whose school meals are her responsibility, along with all the other youngsters she’s helped feed. “I have a hungry soul and a compassion that is just a part of who I am,” she said. “I want to make a difference for all of our kiddos.”

The No Kid Hungry campaign named Crocker a hero for how she’s grown the free summer meals program she started in 2017 from scratch, a year after arriving at Redlands Unified.

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In the summer of 2017, leveraging a $30,000 grant from the National League of Cities and a partnership with the city of Redlands, the program served about 11,000 meals at Community Park and Redlands Community Center.

This year, with $22,800 from Amazon used to buy food carts, and a partnership with the local police department to borrow their barbecue trailer, Crocker expanded locations to include Redlands East Valley High, the YMCA and AK Smiley Public Library.

The Crocker legacy

Crocker, who said she loved to be in the kitchen from the time she was 4, often cooked dinner to give her single working mother a break.

She got an associate’s degree at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, and earned the moniker “Whopper Flopper Crocker” when she worked for Burger King.

Betty Crocker, middle, is director of child nutrition services at Redlands Unified School District. Crocker is shown here goofing off with two members of her staff, Maria Monroy, left, and Alyssa Cummings, right. Crocker was named one of five five national winners of the 2018 No Kid Hungry Summer Meals Hero Contest. This summer the program served 55,000 meals.

And about her Betty Crocker legacy: Elizabeth is her middle name, after her grandmother — the other other Betty Crocker.

As a child she preferred variations of her first name, Christine, to avoid teasing. She didn’t come to embrace Betty until she got to Le Cordon Bleu in 2005.

Now she loves it as much as everybody else:

“The coolest thing I ever discovered about my name was that it makes the world smile.”

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Theresa Walker is a Southern California native who has been a staff writer at The Orange County Register since 1992. She specializes in human interest stories and social issues, such as homelessness. She also covers nonprofits and philanthropy in Orange County. She loves telling stories about ordinary people who do the extraordinary in their communities.